The circuit court dismissed this bill on the ground of laches, and the circuit court of appeals affirmed its action. There can be no doubt whatever of the correctness of this conclusion. Indeed, a stronger case for the application of the doctrine of laches can scarcely be imagined. The warrant, which was issued in 1848, entitled the widow and minor children of Remsen to a grant of 160 acres of public lands. This warrant was never located by the persons to whom it was issued, who appeared to have lived in Philadelphia, and to have been in straitened circumstances.
The warrant was sold by them in 1848 to Nathan C. D. Taylor, and there is nothing to show that it did not realize for the widow and heirs its market value. Indeed, the court of appeals found that it was sold for its full value, and the widow testified that the proceeds were applied to the support of herself and the minor children of the deceased soldier. No fraud in the transaction was alleged or proved. Nothing appears to impeach the validity of the sale, except the fact that the widow, who had been appointed guardian of all the minor children, except the eldest, did not procure the consent of the orphans' court in Philadelphia to make the sale, as required by the statute. This was, doubtless, a technical defect, but it did not show that the warrant was not actually transferred by the widow, acting for herself and her children (except one who consented in her own behalf), or that they did not receive full consideration for such transfer.
It is true that the locator and his grantees in possession may have been, in law, chargeable with the knowledge that an order of the orphans' court was never obtained; but, in view of the fact that the widow and heirs of Remsen lived in Philadelphia, a thousand miles from St. Paul, it is scarcely a matter of surprise that they did not investigate this subject with that care which they probably would have exercised had that court been more accessible. Particularly is this so when it is considered that the officers of the land department subsequently, and after a full review of the facts, decided the warrant to have been properly transferred to Taylor, and issued a patent to him.
It was not the foresight of the widow or heirs of Remsen which caused this warrant to be located upon lands so near to the thriving city of St. Paul, but that of Taylor, who appears to have been a resident of Minnesota; and this suit is a manifest attempt of the complainants to take to themselves the benefit of his action, in which they did not participate, and of which they were entirely ignorant for over 30 years after the location had been made.
Conceding that the minors were not affected by laches until they became of age, it appears that the youngest of them reached his majority in 1863, at which time the lands were worth about $1,500. Then, if not before, the exercise of diligence became incumbent upon them. It was their duty to have informed themselves, and to have acted. It is scarcely possible that they should not have known that their father was a soldier in the Mexican war, and they were chargeable by law with knowledge of the fact that he was entitled to a land warrant. If they did not know this as a matter of fact, it was because their mother and eldest sister had failed to inform them of it; and it is inequitable to charge upon the defendants the entire consequences of this ignorance.